Letter: Death penalty is broken, needs to be repealed

Editor: In response to the article recently about the two men freed from death row after they were exonerated, I can’t help but think about what is commemorated on Good Friday – another innocent man wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. The Powers-that-be in Jesus’ day “stacked the deck” against him, and from their testimonies, it sounds like our criminal justice system “stacked the deck” against these two men. They did that by withholding evidence, by promising a lighter sentence, by pressuring them to plead guilty even though he was not and by believing the testimony of a prisoner who was promised a shortened incarceration time if he testified against a man he knew to be innocent. These are all stories we’ve heard time and time again, yet we are not moved enough to demand changes to our penal system. We remain complicit by our silence, by our complacency, and by our need to find someone to “pay the price,” even if that someone is innocent.

There are now 24 exonerees in the state of Florida alone – the most of any state in our country. On top of that, these exonerees who have spent 8, 10, 13 or more years on death row for a crime they did not commit – then are found innocent – and then let out of prison – many of them do not receive any compensation, monetary or otherwise, for us having taken those years of freedom away from them.

What does that say about us as a society? Do we even know or care that this is happening in our name? The lawyers and prosecutors aren’t going to change the system – most of them stand to benefit from it too much. Only we, the people, can advocate for that change. Our death penalty system is a broken system, and we need to repeal it in Florida.

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Wise words. One wrongfully convicted person on Florida's Death Row is one too many. 24 is a sign of a broken system that is beyond repair. No one knows how many more are still there. The list is growing. Seth Penalver was acquitted and released 3 months ago after 18 years. It's past time to end this hugely expensive fiasco and reallocate the many millions of our taxpayer dollars we spend trying to enforce this government program that risks us killing the innocent the along with the guilty. With 14,000 unsolved Florida homicides, murder victims families struggling to make ends meet, and proven-effective crime prevention programs disbanded, there are wiser ways to use $50 million a year.

@OM, Court System? Tampered, false evidence, overzealous DAs who must get a conviction at all cost. Can't blame judges, blame the legislators. What about the guy who spent 20 years in jail in NY. Framed by a detective who "sleeps good at night". If NY had the death penalty on the books, this man would have been wrongly executed. Most of the civilized countries in the world abolished it long ago. Some form of sentencing, you don't come out from the gas chambers or lethal injections administration.

Using you own words you have reaffirmmed what I am saying ! its not the penalty itself making the wrongfull convictions. If a few of the people doing the tampering were strung up for doing it that kind of business would end ! But alas prosecuting those who are making and enforcing the laws is all but impossible.